So I’ve been trying to figure this out for some time now, and at this point i am beyond ticked off. Im ready to throw this glowforge in the garbage.
I have been having issues with the glowforge not printing where the image shows on the screen (with the 3 cameras it has, an it should not be hard to format things so that it prints where the image says its going to print. I have tried everything that has been suggested in other threads, and nothing seems to work. Turning it off and on again, refreshing bed image before every print, focusing on a specific point. I have messed with different materials, Thicknesses, Settings, etc. I have tried the recalibration print (multiple times), cleaned every lens, nook and cranny. everything, etc. Nothing.
I finally resigned myself to just dealing with the fact that it is off, and made a jig like some people suggested. Even though this didn’t seem like a long term solution to me because you are basically have to do twice as much work (at least two attempts for everything you want to print). And it’s a guessing game at best.
So… I took my piece, put a piece of tape on it, and on low power, scored a bulls eye (the bulls eye was just for a faster print while centering) on the tape until by trial and error, I had it centered where i wanted it (and then scored it 2 more times just to be sure it was at least being consistent). So far so good. My jig was locked into place with the place holding pins, so it didn’t shift while I removed the tape and tried again, for real this time (because I thought I had finally gotten everything where I wanted it). I overlaid my design I wanted to engrave directly centered on the bulls eye design, focused, ready, set, go. Everything looked good up until this point. Exactly the same as it had when I did the ‘bulls eye’ test cut.
BIG FAT NOPE. For whatever reason, It’s printing almost an inch high left of where the bed image shows up… which is about half an inch high left of where it had been previously.
Now… who the crap cares if the glowforge can print to “the thickness of a human hair” if it does it an inch off of where you want it.
For an example of a case I tried. Leather patches. Masking tape on the leather for the cut first, peel off the masking tape and then engrave. So the file is a logo, inside a circle. I will cut the circle and ignore the logo engraving, when its done, the image is off from where the laser cut. Then Ill peel off the masking tape and start another print of the logo engraving. It looks off centered from where the bed image says it cut, but its centered in the ‘design’ circle, so i figure it would print the same amount off center. Nope. Not centered. So then the next time, I tried to recenter the design on where it cut instead. Nope. Still not. It doesn’t seem to be consistent. Sometimes it will be off straight to the left. Sometime up at an angle. Sometimes it will stretch the bed image so the ones in the middle are centered, but at the edge they are off. And other times the whole image is the same amount off.
I can’t make heads or tails of it.
I’ll try anything. Open to any suggestions. Hopefully glowforge gets back to me with some magical reset I can do, and I can finally be free of this stress. I have ruined sooo many pieces trying to get this figured out.